Month: August 2024

Co-operation has been key to the success of the human species

Dr. Trevor Hancock

20 August 2024

701 words

In addition to a commitment to intergenerational equity, which I discussed last week, the recent UN Environment Programme (UNEP) report ‘Navigating New Horizons’ also calls for “a new social contract reinforcing shared values that unite us rather than divide us” and “a new global emphasis on wellbeing metrics rather than pure economic growth.” What would that look like?

The report notes that a social contract is the web of trust and reciprocity that binds different parts of society together. It is hardly a new concept – the report notes it is “found in cultures and religious traditions across the world” – and is rooted in the fact that humans are social animals. One of the things that has made us such a successful species is our social cooperation.

In a 2016 commentary on the Leakey Foundation website, Stuart West, Professor of Evolutionary Biology at the University of Oxford, discussed the evolutionary benefits of cooperation. In part, it is because of the benefits of “reciprocity, where people are more likely to help individuals that have helped them.” Another factor is that cooperation helps the group survive because they can hunt and forage more efficiently and defend themselves from attack – whether by predators or other humans.

Indeed, West notes, competition and conflict between groups can also lead to cooperation within groups. We are all familiar with this, it is used – sometimes maliciously – in a variety of social contexts, including sports, business, politics and war. “However,”, notes the UNEP report, “this social contract is being ignored in many places of the world, where short-term profit and individual success have become dominant, to the detriment of most of the world.”

One key part of a new social contract, the report suggests, is to engage a more diverse group of stakeholders and enable “the active participation of individuals and groups in the decision-making processes that affect their lives.”  This needs to begin at the local level, from where it can filter up. It requires greater transparency and accountability from leaders and the use of tools such as digital platforms, citizens’ assemblies or participatory budgeting.

A second key element, closely related to the first, is to give young people a stronger voice. After all, it is their future we are talking about. Youth assemblies or youth councils – the City of Victoria has one – are a place to begin. But we need to expand this to engage youth in helping to design the communities and the society that they will be living in for decades to come. These are important ways to demonstrate inter-generational equity.

Both these elements can also contribute to another priority identified in the report, namely “promoting agile, adaptive governance”, particularly at the local level.  I will return to this  in a couple of weeks, when I look at what all this means for the Greater Victoria Region.

A third important approach is “the idea that the social contract should include a focus on humanity’s relationship with the environment.” The idea that a social contract should expand to include our connection with nature is not new to Indigenous communities, where a relationship with the Earth and with other species – ‘all our relations’ – is a central aspect of their beliefs and way of life. Indeed, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission has stated: “Reconciliation between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Canadians, from an Aboriginal perspective, also requires reconciliation with the natural world.”

In addition to a new social contract, the UNEP report proposes we need a new economic framework with an emphasis on wellbeing metrics rather than just on GDP. Governments at all levels will need to put planetary health and human wellbeing at the heart of their economic policies and budgets.

This new economic system involves expanding our concept of capital to include natural, social and human capital – also known as ‘inclusive wealth’. It also involves “a fundamental reimagining of the role of businesses and markets.” Instead of being narrowly focused on short term profits, they need to become “engines for prosperity, social cohesion and healthy environments.”

Interestingly, and perhaps unsurprisingly, “the demand for alternative economic and wellbeing measures was strongest among young people”, the report notes; yet another reason to adopt an inter-generational equity approach.

© Trevor Hancock, 2024

thancock@uvic.ca

Dr. Trevor Hancock is a retired professor and senior scholar at the

University of Victoria’s School of Public Health and Social Policy

Think how the presence of such an act might affect the election platforms of the parties in the Oct. 19 B.C. provincial election.

Dr. Trevor Hancock

13 August 2024

699 words

The UN Environment Programme’s report ‘Navigating New Horizons’ is sub-titled “A global foresight report on planetary health and human wellbeing.” In her Foreword, UNEP Executive Director Inger Anderson makes an important distinction: “the point of this report is not to predict the future [but] to foresee the future.”

The difference is important. “Prediction is passive”, she notes, “it means locking in a vision of the future. Foresight is about imagining the future and then looking at how to change it.” So having identified eight critical shifts that threaten to disrupt planetary health and human wellbeing, the report turns to suggesting solutions.

“Humanity”, the report states, “has a stark and urgent choice to make: continue to destabilise planetary health and risk losing humanity’s life support system, or build a future that embraces equity, addresses the underlying drivers of environmental degradation and achieves sustainable development. What humanity decides now will shape the world that future generations will inherit.”

That latter point reflects one of the key changes the report calls for; we must adopt the principle of “intergenerational equity, which is concerned with generations not yet born.” This principle is embedded in the very definition of sustainable development, created in 1987 by the World Commission on Environment and Development: “Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of futuregenerations to meet their own needs.”

So we need to consider the needs of future generations in every policy and in every corporate decision we make. This is not a new idea; The report points to the concept of ‘seven generations’  thinking, “attributed to Native American Haudenosaunee (Iroquois)” and other Indigenous philosophies.

One practical way to do this has been demonstrated by the Welsh National Assembly. In 2015 they passed the Well-being of Future Generations Act. Among other things, the Act establishes the position of Future Generations Commissioner and establishes “a legally-binding common purpose – the seven well-being goals – for national government, local government, local health boards and other specified public bodies.”

Under the Act, these public bodies “must set and publish well-being objectives . . . then take action to make sure they meet the objectives they set.” Moreover, each government Minister must set national indicators, establish and regularly update ‘milestones’ (objectives) and publish an annual progress report.

The role of the Commissioner is to “to act as a guardian for the interests of future generations in Wales”, The Commissioner can provide advice to the public bodies listed in the Act on how to achieve the well-being goals, carry out research, conduct reviews of the work of the public bodies and make recommendations for action.

In addition, the Commissioner “must publish, a year before a Senedd [National Assembly] election, a report containing the Commissioner’s assessment of the improvements public bodies should make to achieve the well-being goals.”

With a provincial election coming up October 19^th, think how useful it would be to have such an Act and a Commissioner’s report. How would the B.C. government stack up? What would the report say about their commitment to expanding LNG exports and the associated greenhouse gas emissions? Their failure to fully implement the report of the Old Growth Strategic Review and fully protect old growth forests? Their failure to bring in a Species at Risk Act, as they promised to do years ago?

Think how the presence of such an Act might affect the election platforms of the parties. How could the Liberals (sorry, BC United) and the Conservatives put forward platforms essentially committed to ‘business as usual’, when we know this leads to damage to both planetary health and the wellbeing of future generations.

But we don’t have such an Act. It’s time we did. So if you share my concern with the direction we are headed, for the wellbeing of today’s young people in the decades ahead and for generations yet to come, I suggest you insist that all candidates and parties commit to bringing in a Wellbeing of Future Generations Act. Your children, grandchildren and their descendants will thank you for it. 

Next week, I will look at two other key solutions the report recommends; a new social contract and a new global emphasis on wellbeing metrics.

© Trevor Hancock, 2024

thancock@uvic.ca

Dr. Trevor Hancock is a retired professor and senior scholar at the

University of Victoria’s School of Public Health and Social Policy

• Published as  “Misinformation, declining trust and polarization undermines democracy”

Misinformation and disinformation, increasingly powered by AI, are identified as the most severe global risk over the next two years by the World Economic Forum

Dr. Trevor Hancock

6 August 2024

697 words

Last week I summarised five of the eight critical shifts identified in a recent UN Environment. Programme (UNEP) report, ‘Navigating New Horizons’, which is “a global foresight report on planetary health and human wellbeing.” I also touched on a sixth critical shift; persistent and widening inequalities.

This week I will dig deeper into this sixth challenge, as well as two remaining challenges that are really about governance: Misinformation, declining trust and polarization (to which growing inequalities doubtless contribute) and polycentricity and the diffusion of governance.

The UNEP report is blunt: “Immense inequalities of income and wealth intensify within and between countries worldwide.” For example, “while the top 10 per cent account for more than three quarters of total global wealth, the bottom 50 per cent of the world population own just 2 per cent or almost nothing.” Moreover, “between 1995 and 2021, the top 1 per cent captured 38 per cent of the global increase in total wealth, while the bottom 50 per cent again accounted for just 2 per cent.”

In particular, the report notes, “inequalities of wealth and income lead to ecological inequities.” with marginalised populations experiencing “unequal access to clear air and water, fertile soil, stable climate and vibrant biodiversity” – and that in turn exacerbates forced migration as places become uninhabitable due to ecological changes.

This level of inequality can only exacerbate polarisation and distrust, the seventh critical shift we face. It does so in two ways: First, “this growing concentration of wealth . . .  confers huge economic and political power on a tiny elite.” But even worse, it contributes to “social stratification and undermining public institutions and social solidarity”, thus undermining confidence in governments.

In addition, and further contributing to the loss of trust and faith in governments, these inequalities are a failure of governance: “income inequality is rising due to unequal access to education, limited employment opportunities and inadequate social services, as well as regressive tax policies”, the report notes. 

Turning then to the seventh critical shift – misinformation, declining trust and polarization – the report notes: “Misinformation and disinformation, increasingly powered by AI, is identified as the most severe global risk over the next two years in the latest Global Risk Report of the World Economic Forum (2024), undermining social cohesion, trust in institutions and fuelling political divides.”

This situation is due in part to the decline of mainstream media, “further undermining the ability to provide accurate news”, as well as the deliberate campaigns to undermine science, especially climate science, coming from some political and corporate sectors. The resulting weakening of trust in science undermines democratic institutions, the report notes, making it “much harder to design and deliver effective policies to tackle societal challenges, including the climate crisis.”  

The final critical shift is a diffusion of governance, partly because of “a recognition that national governments have been unable to address global sustainability challenges—either operating individually or multilaterally.” But also governments have “allowed some relocation of power and responsibilities” in the face of a plethora of non-state actors that have been engaged as “agents of change.”

Such diffusion of power, creating a more polycentric governance system, is not necessarily a bad thing if it is genuinely a sharing of power and not just an abdication of responsibility. But it does require an assurance of “very high levels of transparency, accountability and integrity”, which is not often apparent.

But surprisingly perhaps, in the face of these eight critical shifts, the message of the UNEP report is not one of despair. On the contrary, there is hope: “The good news”, states the UNEP, “is that just as the impact of multiple crises is compounded when they are linked, so are the solutions.”  Thus we can “shift the momentum from the brink of polycrisis to polystability.”

The report suggests there are two key changes we need to make: “a focus on intergenerational equity and a new social contract reinforcing shared values that unite us rather than divides us.” A third important change that will help bring about the needed transformation, UNEP notes, is “Placing a new global emphasis on wellbeing metrics rather than pure economic growth.” I will examine these key changes next week.

© Trevor Hancock, 2024

thancock@uvic.ca

Dr. Trevor Hancock is a retired professor and senior scholar at the

University of Victoria’s School of Public Health and Social Policy

• Published as “Water scarcity, forced displacement among challenges we face”

Humans face multiple challenges beyond climate change, from resource scarcity to rising armed conflict and mass forced displacement.

Dr. Trevor Hancock

30 July 2024

703 words

The UN Environment Programme’s new report, Navigating New Horizons, produced in partnership with the International Science Council, is not easy reading. It’s not just that it is a dense 100-page document, but because it paints a grim picture of the challenges we face. However, towards the end, the report notes a shift that is both hopeful and relevant to local action, as I will discuss in a couple of weeks’ time.

But first, what of the future challenges? Unsurprisingly, given it is a report from the UN’s environment agency, there is a strong focus on the environmental challenges we face. But there are also important social and governance challenges, and all these challenges are not only growing and speeding up, but converging and “appear to be synchronizing”, becoming a polycrisis.

The first challenge is the shifting relationship between humans and the Earth, such that “continuing environmental degradation and systemic shifts are pushing natural ecosystems and humans to limits.” The UN speaks of a ‘triple planetary crisis’ of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution. In addition to the well-known challenges of climate change, it has been estimated that by 2050 less than 10 percent of the Earth’s land area will remain free from significant human impact, while “humans will have eliminated 38–46 per cent of all biodiversity”.

Pollution is a particular concern, with “350,000 chemicals and substances listed for production and use”. Moreover, of the thousands of chemicals “registered as being toxic, or persistent, by a few countries . . . the vast majority have not been measured in the environment or in humans.” As a result “the hidden health and ecological costs [are] likely underestimated”, and are particularly serious for infants and children.

A second and related challenge is scarcity of and competition for critical resource. While oil, gas and, more recently, rare earth minerals have gotten a lot of attention, more worrying is scarcity of such fundamental determinants of wellbeing, indeed survival, as food, water and land. “Climate change exacerbates water scarcity”, which not only damages food production but will “increase the likelihood of conflicts.”

Indeed, a new era of conflict is a third challenge: “Armed conflict and violence are on the rise.” Not only are there “fifty-nine state-based conflicts across 34 countries . . . higher than any time since 1946”, but “increasingly, conflicts are propagated and sustained by the engagement of non-state actors, political militias, domestic criminal groups and terrorist organizations.” And as we see only too well, drones, satellite imagery, AI and other technological changes are changing the nature of conflict.

Moreover, “armed conflicts consistently result in environmental degradation and destruction . . . triggering food and water insecurity, loss of livelihoods and biodiversity depletion.” These impacts are exacerbated by “the weaponization of access to water, food, energy and critical infrastructure.”

These changes contribute to a fourth challenge: Mass forced displacement. “Whether due to conflict, climate change or other external pressures”, the result is that home becomes uninhabitable, so people have “little choice other than to move.” Today 1 in 69 people around 115 million – are forcibly displaced, but the International Organization for Migration reports that that “environmental impacts and climate change alone . . . will force more than 216 million people across six continents to be on the move within their countries by 2050.” Women and children are disproportionately harmed in these situations.

Another key challenge is the digital transformation, including social media, AI and other technologies, the impact of which it is hard to estimate. On the one hand, “these innovations hold tremendous promise to accelerate improvements across various systems, from energy to mobility to food and beyond.” But we have also all seen the downsides of some of this technology, and the ability to manage the technology in the face of rapid change driven by private sector initiatives “looks increasingly difficult”.

A sixth challenge is persistent and widening inequalities, both within and between countries, which many of the other critical shifts only make worse. I will explore this challenge in more detail next week along with the two remaining critical shifts, which relate mainly to governance challenges, before starting to look at the potential for positive responses and the implications for local action. 

© Trevor Hancock, 2024

thancock@uvic.ca

Dr. Trevor Hancock is a retired professor and senior scholar at the

University of Victoria’s School of Public Health and Social Policy